The Monkey King's Used Primate Emporium and Book Reviews

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Brian Michael Bendis, �Jinx�

Started March 1 � Finished March 1, 2005; 480 pages. Posted 03 April 2005

Ok, so eventually I�ll be done with the reruns. Besides, I think I�m going to try and branch out my appreciation of the arts further by including a new feature: work-related haiku. Today�s entry:


Mister Pimp Daddy,
I�ll have to ask you to leave.
Yo� bitch smells like butt.

Thank you! Thank you! Enjoy the buffet, we�ll be here all week!

I went to Kaiser again recently to try something new for the psoriasis on my scalp. The dermatologist wasn�t very sympathetic, saying she had seen cases that were much worse. I told her I wasn�t interested in entering competitions, I just wanted to stop digging chunks of my head out with my fingernails.

She asked me what the biggest problem was about it, and I said the itchiness, plus the angry red marks on my skull from me succumbing to said itchiness. So I thought she was fucking with me when she prescribed something that made it itch ten times worse.

The first day I put it on my scalp I had to sit at work with my fists clenched and my feet pressed into the holes in the desk in order to keep me from running over and scrapping the back of my head against the side of the bookcases like a bear with lice.

But whatever she prescribed seemed to be working, and soon I was only touching my scalp out of habit. Some of the rough edges began to smooth out again. But I haven�t been able to find the lotion since Wednesday � the last time I did the DJ thing at the dive bar. Now I want to jab a fork into the base of my skull and slide it around viciously. Perhaps typing will keep my mind off it.

So back to the book. Bendis is doing the whole black and white comic noir thing here, the same kind of look utilized in Frank Miller�s Sin City. I saw Sin City on Friday afternoon (yes, by myself, thanks for reminding me).

There are a lot of women in garter belts in Sin City.

Gah... I really like garter belts.

People have asked me what I thought about the violence factor in the film. There was violence? All I remember were the outfits.

Grrrrrr...

GAH! Book! Book! Think about book! No garter belts in book! Garter belts good! Book good, but no garter belts! MORE GARTER BELTS!

Anyway. At least I stopped thinking about my scalp.

I�m not going to go into plot detail, as the majority of people probably don�t care. It�s a great crime noir novel though, well plotted and with dialogue that isn�t as monosyllabic as Frank Miller. There�s another book by Bendis featuring these characters, which I happen to have on my hold shelf at work. I�m looking forward to reading that one, though it�ll probably be another month before I can get to it.

Still, if you�ve read Bendis in any of his other works (Daredevil, Ultimate Spider-man, Powers, Torso, amongst a host of others) you�ve probably noticed he�s fond of doing the double-truck thing, where two facing pages intermix. Trouble is, almost without fail, I don�t notice that I�m supposed to go over to the next page on the top row of art until I�ve already finished the entire page on the left. Then I have to start the whole thing page over again to try and make sense of what the hell is going on.

I mean, fine, I�m glad Bendis is enjoying being creative. I�m glad he cares enough about the artwork to want to avoid it being placed over the fold and thereby ruining it. But would some sort of clue about which way we�re supposed to read kill him? And couldn�t he put in at least a couple of women in garters?

And speaking about giving people what they want, the last time I did the DJ thing got a little weird. As I had already done this twice before, I think I went a little too far into �Things I want to hear� rather than �Things people want to hear.� I�ve already put the records away, so I can�t do a set list. Sorry.

Like I mentioned previously, the place was packed for some reason. I started watching the reactions of the crowd. The guy I was playing records with would put on something well known, and people would jump around and dance next to the sign that said �Absolutely NO Dancing.�

Then I would play something, and people would go back to their little groups to talk.

But since I was playing little-known punk rock bands, the song would end in a minute and a half and the next song would start, which made everybody go nuts all over again.

I wanted to make people go nuts.

I started playing second songs by bands that I brought that were more well known: Supersuckers. Descendents. Devo. Some of the songs were getting a fair reaction, but nowhere near the level that the other guy got. I finally told the other DJ I was going outside to smoke.

�Actually,� I said, �I think I�m done. The crowd seems to like your stuff better. Funny, I never thought about them before.�

�You sure, man?� he asked. �I like what you�re playing.�

I went outside and smoked through three songs when somebody came up and complemented my Hanson Brothers shirt (and no, that�s not for the band with the three blond Hansen moppets). I realized I had brought the Hanson Brothers with me. Me and this guy who liked my shirt were probably the only ones who knew who the fuck the Hanson Brothers were.

But you know what? I like the Hanson Brothers.

I went back in and finished the rest of my set.

And by then the rest of the crowd was too loaded to care.

Worth keeping? Yep!


Rating: Worth used, but only because it�s so expensive new.

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